He was to marry Sophie as soon as he should obtain his first parish.
Within a few months after his ordination he was appointed by the convention to the Methodist church in New York City near which his widow now kept her boarding-house.
He had held his pulpit but a few weeks, during which Sophie was busily engaged in preparing for their wedding and their housekeeping, when he was suddenly stricken down with a disease known to be fatal from its onset.
As soon as he knew that he was to leave this world he sent for his promised bride, and she came to him, accompanied by their two mothers.
And in the sick-chamber the long-engaged, faithful lovers were united.
He lingered a few days after his marriage, constantly attended by Sophie and the two mothers, and then passed peacefully away to the better world.
The three grieving women took his remains to their native village and laid them in their last resting place in the old church-yard.
Soon afterwards his mother departed and left all the little remnant of her savings to Sophie.
“For she is all the same as a daughter to me, and I have no other child,” said the poor widow to the lawyer who drew up the will.
We live in a changeful country. Few of us have the good or the bad fortune to